DOCSLIB.ORG

Full-Text PDF (Accepted Author Manuscript)

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Full-Text PDF (Accepted Author Manuscript) Guast, W. (2017). Accepting the omen: external reference in Greek declamation. Cambridge Classical Journal, 63, 82-102. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1750270517000069 Peer reviewed version Link to published version (if available): 10.1017/S1750270517000069 Link to publication record in Explore Bristol Research PDF-document This is the author accepted manuscript (AAM). The final published version (version of record) is available online via Cambridge University Press at https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/cambridge-classical- journal/article/accepting-the-omen-external-referece-in-greek- declamation/8BA4316403B966605EE9736C2311EAB0 . Please refer to any applicable terms of use of the publisher. University of Bristol - Explore Bristol Research General rights This document is made available in accordance with publisher policies. Please cite only the published version using the reference above. Full terms of use are available: http://www.bristol.ac.uk/red/research-policy/pure/user-guides/ebr-terms/ 1 ACCEPTING THE OMEN: EXTERNAL REFERENCE IN GREEK DECLAMATION William Guast University of Bristol, UK* Abstract: Traditional accounts of Greek declamation paint this important imperial genre as a flight from the alleged impotence of Greek cities under Roman rule into a nostalgic fantasy of the autonomy of the Classical past. But there is clear evidence of declaimers using their works to refer to the world outside the fiction, often to the immediate performance context, and above all to themselves. This paper examines examples from Aelius Aristides, Philostratus’ Lives of the Sophists, and Polemo, and shows that such a practice facilitated vigorous and eloquent communication, while also allowing for any external message to be plausibly denied. Introduction Λολλιανὸς δὲ ὁ Ἐφέσιος προὔστη μὲν τοῦ Ἀθήνησι θρόνου πρῶτος, προὔστη δὲ καὶ τοῦ Ἀθηναίων δήμου στρατηγήσας αὐτοῖς τὴν ἐπὶ τῶν ὅπλων, ἡ δὲ ἀρχὴ αὕτη πάλαι μὲν κατέλεγέ τε καὶ ἐξῆγεν ἐς τὰ πολέμια, νυνὶ δὲ τροφῶν ἐπιμελεῖται καὶ σίτου ἀγορᾶς. θορύβου δὲ καθεστηκότος παρὰ τὰ ἀρτοπώλια καὶ τῶν Ἀθηναίων βάλλειν αὐτὸν ὡρμηκότων Παγκράτης ὁ κύων ὁ μετὰ ταῦτα ἐν Ἰσθμῷ φιλοσοφήσας παρελθὼν ἐς τοὺς Ἀθηναίους καὶ εἰπὼν ‘Λολλιανὸς οὐκ ἔστιν ἀρτοπώλης, ἀλλὰ λογοπώλης’ διέχεεν οὕτω τοὺς Ἀθηναίους, ὡς μεθεῖναι τοὺς λίθους διὰ χειρὸς αὐτοῖς ὄντας. Σίτου δὲ ἐκ Θετταλίας ἐσπεπλευκότος καὶ 2 χρημάτων δημοσίᾳ οὐκ ὄντων ἐπέτρεψεν ὁ Λολλιανὸς ἔρανον τοῖς αὐτοῦ γνωρίμοις, καὶ χρήματα συχνὰ ἠθροίσθη… κατηγορῶν μὲν γὰρ τοῦ Λεπτίνου διὰ τὸν νόμον, ἐπεὶ μὴ ἐφοίτα τοῖς Ἀθηναίοις ἐκ τοῦ Πόντου σῖτος, ὧδε ἤκμασεν· ‘κέκλεισται τὸ στόμα τοῦ Πόντου νόμῳ καὶ τὰς Ἀθηναίων τροφὰς ὀλίγαι κωλύουσι συλλαβαί, καὶ ταὐτὸν δύναται Λύσανδρος ναυμαχῶν καὶ Λεπτίνης νομομαχῶν’. (Philostr. VS 526, 527) ‘Lollianus of Ephesus was the first holder of the chair of rhetoric at Athens, and he also led the Athenian people as Hoplite General. Formerly this office involved holding the levy and leading the Athenians out to war, but these days it is concerned with the food supply and the grain market. When there was an uproar in the bakeries, and the Athenians were starting to stone Lollianus, Pancrates the Cynic, who after these events pursued philosophy at the Isthmus of Corinth, came before the Athenians and said “It is words, not bread, that Lollianus sells”, and in this way so diverted the Athenians that they let go of the stones that were in their hands. And when a shipment of grain had arrived from Thessaly and there was no money in the treasury to pay for it, Lollianus told his students to make contributions, and a great deal of money was collected… When Lollianus was condemning Leptines for the law he had brought, since the Athenians had stopped receiving grain from Pontus, the climax of his speech was as follows: “The mouth of the Pontus has been barred by a law, and Athens’ food supply is being held back by a few syllables, and Leptines with his laws is as powerful as Lysander was with his ships.”’ 3 Did Lollianus use his speech condemning Leptines to talk about himself and his own position in Athens? That speech, of course, was a rhetorical exercise, specifically a declamation, a fictitious speech.1 This declamation was set in the fourth century BC, and was inspired by Demosthenes’ Contra Leptinem. It is imagined that Leptines’ bill, in which it was proposed to abolish all exemptions from liturgies, has been ratified, and that * E-mail: [email protected] I cite Hermog. Stat. according to the edition of Patillon (2009) and Aps. Rh. according to the edition of Spengel and Hammer (1884). RG refers to Walz (1832). All translations are my own unless otherwise noted. For helpful feedback of all kinds, which has improved this article immeasurably, I wish to thank Prof. Tim Whitmarsh, Prof. Chris Pelling, Prof. Jaś Elsner, audiences at Radboud University, Nijmegen (particularly my respondent on that occasion, Prof. Bé Breij), the Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa (particularly Prof. Glenn Most), and Corpus Christi College, University of Oxford, and the two anonymous CCJ readers. This article was begun when I held a Stavros Niarchos Foundation graduate scholarship at the University of Oxford, and finished when I held a fellowship funded by the A.G. Leventis Foundation at the University of Bristol’s Institute for Greece, Rome, and the Classical Tradition: I wish to place on record my deep gratitude to all three organizations, without whom this research would not have been possible. 1 On Greek declamation generally, see Russell (1983). Other accounts of the genre are to be found in Reardon (1971) 104–14, Bowie (1970) 4–10, Kennedy (1974), Anderson (1993) 55–64, Swain (1996) 90–6, Schmitz (1997) 10–15, 112–27, 198–205, and Korenjak (2000). 4 Leucon of Bosporus, who had previously enjoyed such an exemption, has retaliated by stopping shipments of grain to Athens, as Demosthenes had warned might happen (Dem. 20.29–40).2 Given that Lollianus as hoplite general at Athens had faced at least one bread riot, and on another occasion had to raise money from his own students when there was no public money to pay for a shipment of grain from Thessaly, it is tempting to see in this grain crisis faced by classical Athens a reflection of Lollianus’ own position. Yet while several scholars have noticed the coincidence between Lollianus’ real-world occupation and his artistic output, they have generally remained cautious about seeing any intentional link between the two. Russell says (of this instance and of the possibility of the phenomenon in general) ‘in default of clearer evidence, we should be sceptical’;3 Anderson follows Russell in saying that ‘Lollianus does not actually seem to have used his rhetoric against Leptines in front of the real mob’;4 the commentaries of Rothe and Civiletti say simply that such a declamatory scenario might have been of particular interest to a man who was concerned with Athens’ grain supply.5 Only Pernot comes out in favour of a deliberate link.6 That there is a notable alignment here between life and art is not disputed. What is harder to decide, however, is whether (in the absence of a definitive statement by 2 On this declamation scenario, see Kohl (1915) 67, Rothe 48–50, and Civiletti (2002) 471. 3 Russell (1983) 108–9. 4 Anderson (1986) 63–4. 5 Rothe (1989) 49, Civiletti (2002) 471. 6 Pernot (2007) 222–5. See also n. 49 below. 5 Philostratus) that alignment was likely to have been actually exploited by Lollianus. Yet what tips the balance in favour of a contemporary reference is the fact that this is not an isolated example. In this paper (which limits itself to second- and third-century Greek declamation), I examine five clear instances (clearer indeed than the Lollianus example) of declamations being used in this way, and conclude that Greek declamation was probably frequently used to make specific reference to the world outside its own fiction, often to the immediate performance context, and above all to the author himself.7 Such use of declamatory characters to talk about oneself would of course be a natural extension of a phenomenon already well-known to scholarship, namely the Greek imperial habit of seeing the present in terms of the classical past,8 and in the examples that follow we will see several instances in which the personae adopted by a sophist in declamation continue and enlarge upon those he used outside of declamation also. 7 Extant second and third century declamations: Luc. Tyr., Abd., Phal. 1, Phal. 2 (text in Macleod (1972), translation in Harmon (1913) and Harmon (1936)); Aristid. Orr. 5–16 (text in Lenz and Behr (1976), translation in Behr (1981)); two declamations by Polemo (text in Stefec (2016), translation and commentary in Reader (1996) (but see Stefec (2013) 113–14)); three declamations by Lesbonax (text and commentary in Kiehr (1907)); one perhaps by Herodes Atticus (text and commentary in Albini (1968)); one by Hadrian of Tyre (text in Hinck (1873)). For the second and third centuries as a (tolerably) coherent unit of analysis, see Schmitz (1997) 33–34 and Whitmarsh (2005) 3 n. 1. For later Greek declamation and Latin declamation see below at nn. 57-8. 8 On this phenomenon, see Anderson (1986) 33–36, Desideri (1992), Swain (1996) 65– 100, Schmitz (1998), and Webb (2006). 6 This conclusion matters since to many, Greek declamation, with its painstaking recreation of the language and history of Classical Greece, seems, in Russell’s phrase, to be ‘pure escapism’ from a world which offered ‘no worthy theatre’.9 To see such external references in declamation, then, is to reimagine the genre as not so divorced from the real world after all.10 I now examine five instances of declamations being used to speak to the world outside their own fiction.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Marathon 2,500 Years Edited by Christopher Carey & Michael Edwards
    MARATHON 2,500 YEARS EDITED BY CHRISTOPHER CAREY & MICHAEL EDWARDS INSTITUTE OF CLASSICAL STUDIES SCHOOL OF ADVANCED STUDY UNIVERSITY OF LONDON MARATHON – 2,500 YEARS BULLETIN OF THE INSTITUTE OF CLASSICAL STUDIES SUPPLEMENT 124 DIRECTOR & GENERAL EDITOR: JOHN NORTH DIRECTOR OF PUBLICATIONS: RICHARD SIMPSON MARATHON – 2,500 YEARS PROCEEDINGS OF THE MARATHON CONFERENCE 2010 EDITED BY CHRISTOPHER CAREY & MICHAEL EDWARDS INSTITUTE OF CLASSICAL STUDIES SCHOOL OF ADVANCED STUDY UNIVERSITY OF LONDON 2013 The cover image shows Persian warriors at Ishtar Gate, from before the fourth century BC. Pergamon Museum/Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin. Photo Mohammed Shamma (2003). Used under CC‐BY terms. All rights reserved. This PDF edition published in 2019 First published in print in 2013 This book is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- NoDerivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0) license. More information regarding CC licenses is available at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ Available to download free at http://www.humanities-digital-library.org ISBN: 978-1-905670-81-9 (2019 PDF edition) DOI: 10.14296/1019.9781905670819 ISBN: 978-1-905670-52-9 (2013 paperback edition) ©2013 Institute of Classical Studies, University of London The right of contributors to be identified as the authors of the work published here has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Designed and typeset at the Institute of Classical Studies TABLE OF CONTENTS Introductory note 1 P. J. Rhodes The battle of Marathon and modern scholarship 3 Christopher Pelling Herodotus’ Marathon 23 Peter Krentz Marathon and the development of the exclusive hoplite phalanx 35 Andrej Petrovic The battle of Marathon in pre-Herodotean sources: on Marathon verse-inscriptions (IG I3 503/504; Seg Lvi 430) 45 V.
    [Show full text]
  • Guast, W. (2017). Accepting the Omen: External Reference in Greek Declamation
    Guast, W. (2017). Accepting the omen: external reference in Greek declamation. Cambridge Classical Journal, 63, 82-102. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1750270517000069 Peer reviewed version Link to published version (if available): 10.1017/S1750270517000069 Link to publication record in Explore Bristol Research PDF-document This is the author accepted manuscript (AAM). The final published version (version of record) is available online via Cambridge University Press at https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/cambridge-classical- journal/article/accepting-the-omen-external-referece-in-greek- declamation/8BA4316403B966605EE9736C2311EAB0 . Please refer to any applicable terms of use of the publisher. University of Bristol - Explore Bristol Research General rights This document is made available in accordance with publisher policies. Please cite only the published version using the reference above. Full terms of use are available: http://www.bristol.ac.uk/red/research-policy/pure/user-guides/ebr-terms/ 1 ACCEPTING THE OMEN: EXTERNAL REFERENCE IN GREEK DECLAMATION William Guast University of Bristol, UK* Abstract: Traditional accounts of Greek declamation paint this important imperial genre as a flight from the alleged impotence of Greek cities under Roman rule into a nostalgic fantasy of the autonomy of the Classical past. But there is clear evidence of declaimers using their works to refer to the world outside the fiction, often to the immediate performance context, and above all to themselves. This paper examines examples from Aelius Aristides, Philostratus’ Lives of the Sophists, and Polemo, and shows that such a practice facilitated vigorous and eloquent communication, while also allowing for any external message to be plausibly denied. Introduction Λολλιανὸς δὲ ὁ Ἐφέσιος προὔστη μὲν τοῦ Ἀθήνησι θρόνου πρῶτος, προὔστη δὲ καὶ τοῦ Ἀθηναίων δήμου στρατηγήσας αὐτοῖς τὴν ἐπὶ τῶν ὅπλων, ἡ δὲ ἀρχὴ αὕτη πάλαι μὲν κατέλεγέ τε καὶ ἐξῆγεν ἐς τὰ πολέμια, νυνὶ δὲ τροφῶν ἐπιμελεῖται καὶ σίτου ἀγορᾶς.
    [Show full text]
  • How to Write History: Thucydides and Herodotus in the Ancient Rhetorical Tradition
    How to write history: Thucydides and Herodotus in the ancient rhetorical tradition A Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Scott Kennedy, B.A., B.S. Graduate Program in Greek and Latin The Ohio State University 2018 Dissertation Committee: Anthony Kaldellis, Adviser Benjamin Acosta-Hughes Will Batstone Copyright by Scott Kennedy 2018 Abstract Modern students of Thucydides and Herodotus may find it odd to think of them as rhetoricians. Yet in the ancient world, both historians (and especially Thucydides) played an important role in rhetorical schools. They were among the favorite authors of ancient teachers of rhetoric and served as foundational pillars of the ancient curriculum, providing themes for school exercises and even for such seminal texts as Hermogenes' theoretical treatises on rhetoric. Modern scholars might never read technical rhetorical texts such as Hermogenes. They almost certainly would never turn to Hermogenes and his kind to help them understand Thucydides or Herodotus. But for our ancient intellectual predecessors, such an approach would have been unconscionable, as ancient rhetoric was the theoretical lens with which they understood and appreciated historical writings. In this dissertation, I explore the confluence of rhetoric and historiography in the ancient world through an examination of how Herodotus and Thucydides were used in ancient schools and then by later historians. Chapter 1 and 2 outline how these historians were embedded and encoded within the rhetorical curriculum. In Chapter 1, I examine how Herodotus and Thucydides entered the rhetorical curriculum and how rhetors incorporated them into the rhetorical curriculum through an examination of the surviving progymnasmata, scholia, and pedagogical myths.
    [Show full text]
  • Attempts at Restoring Pagan Hellenism During the Reign of Emperor Julian the Apostate
    International Journal of Orthodox Theology 5:4 (2014) 177 urn:nbn:de:0276-2014-4082 Marius Telea Attempts at restoring pagan Hellenism during the Reign of Emperor Julian the Apostate. Figures of Christian Martyrs Abstract In the Orthodox Church, martyrdom has always been regarded and understood as being the supreme trial of faith, through which Christians confess their faith in Jesus Christ the Saviour, even at the expense of their life. The violent and atrocious persecutions against Christians lasted almost three centuries, more precisely until 313, when Emperor Constantine the Great granted freedom to the Christian religion through the so-called Edict of Milan. Later, after persecutions ceased, the Marius Telea is PhD., relics of the holy martyrs were taken Associate Professor of History and Spirituality of out of their tombs and place with Byzantium at the Faculty devoutness in open vaults or of Orthodox Theology of reliquaries, and on the tombs of “December 1st 1918” saints and martyrs were built the first University of Alba Iulia, churches called martyria. Here, Romania. 178 Marius Telea Christians began to assemble so as to glorify God and to pray the saint martyrs for intercession before the throne of the Holy Trinity for the salvation of people. Keywords Paganism, Julian the Apostate, Hellenism, Martyrs 1 Introduction The fourth century AD meant the final victory of Christianity over paganism. The Greek-Roman paganism with its gods and culture was drawing to an end. The Christian religion and culture sprang bright and powerful on the ruins of the pagan religion and culture. The temples of Greek and Roman gods were destroyed by Christian missionaries, and Christianity became a state religion.
    [Show full text]
  • Download This PDF File
    Athens between East and West: Athenian Elite Self-Presentation and the Durability of Traditional Cult in Late Antiquity Edward Watts T IS GENERALLY ACCEPTED that the urban centers of the Greek-speaking east more quickly dismantled traditional religious infrastructure and disrupted traditional religious I 1 customs than did cities in the west. The city of Athens, how- ever, has always fit awkwardly in this narrative. Alexandria, long Athens’ rival for cultural supremacy in the Greek world, saw its urban infrastructure violently and effectively Christian- ized in the early 390s by the campaigns and construction projects of the bishop Theophilus.2 Alexandria’s civic and political life arguably followed suit after the violence that accompanied the consolidation of episcopal power by Theo- philus’ successor Cyril and the murder of the philosopher Hypatia in the early 410s.3 Antioch and its hinterland saw its pagan institutions disrupted gradually, first through isolated incidents like the conversion (and ultimate destruction) of the 1 See, among others, C. P. Jones, Between Pagan and Christian (Cambridge [Mass.] 2014) 107–143. 2 J. Hahn, “The Conversion of Cult Statues: The Destruction of the Serapeum 392 A.D. and the Transformation of Alexandria into the ‘Christ- Loving’ City,” in J. Hahn et al. (eds.), From Temple to Church: Destruction and Renewal of Local Cultic Topography in Late Antiquity (Leiden 2008) 335–363. Cf. E. Watts, Riot in Alexandria (Berkeley 2010) 191–205. 3 On Hypatia see C. Haas, Alexandria in Late Antiquity (Baltimore 1997) 295–316; M. Dzielska, Hypatia of Alexandria (Cambridge [Mass.] 1995) 88– 93; E. Watts, Hypatia: The Life and Legend of an Ancient Philosopher (Oxford 2017).
    [Show full text]
  • Can We Hear the Spoken Words of Gregory of Nazianzus?
    72 Scrinium 13 (2017) 72-83 Daunton-fear Journal of Patrology and Critical Hagiography www.brill.com/scri Can We Hear the Spoken Words of Gregory of Nazianzus? Andrew Daunton-Fear Bristol, UK [email protected] Summary St. Gregory of Nazianzus, of great repute in the Orthodox Church as a theologian, was also an outstanding preacher whose style was honed by some of the greatest teachers of rhetoric of his day. We have scripts of forty-four of his homilies (orations), issued to posterity from his retirement. Their often complex style and thought has led some scholars to deduce that he heavily reworked them and to question whether we can any longer hear what he actually said. Yet his powerful employment of rhetorical figures, particularly in his festal orations, but also elsewhere, and his frequent use of direct speech to individuals, groups, or his whole audience, suggest that here at least we can hear his actual spoken words. Keywords Gregory of Nazianzus – preacher – orations – rhetoric – sophists – figures of thought – figures of speech – direct speech Saint Gregory of Nazianzus (c. 329-c. 390), one of the ‘Cappadocian Fathers’, was accorded the title ‘the Theologian’ by the eastern church for his classic exposition of the doctrine of the Trinity. He was also an outstanding preacher. Born into a Christian family in Cappadocia, he received a fine classical educa- tion. At Athens he was taught rhetoric by the Christian Prohaeresius and the pagan Himerius,1 leading exponents of the Second Sophistic. This training, 1 Socrates, H.E. 4.26.6; Sokrates.
    [Show full text]
  • The Library •-- ! of Photius % Volume I
    y t? TRANSLATIONS OF 1 CHRISTIAN LITERATURE a i THE LIBRARY •-- ! OF PHOTIUS % VOLUME I. ^r J, H. FREESE i i i i ! i , rt^Mj^iyij|j(|ij j ! |.|| M|i |U|i|y eS-'^-v'im..*!., TRANSLATIONS OF CHRISTIAN LITERATURE General Editors : W. J. SPARROW SIMPSON, D.D., W. K. LOWTHER CLARKE, B.D. SERIES I GREEK TEXTS PHOTIUS VOL. I. TRM51AnO¥^ OF CFM^TIM LITERATirRE . $EBIES I GREEK TEXT5 ( \ THE LIBRAKY OF PHOTIUS VOLUMEI i Sy JHFREESE. SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE. London The Macmillan Corapanuipanu .l^evv\ork J 1920 \s^o^^ Printed in Great Britain by Richard Clay ^^ Sons, Limited, brunswick st., stamford st., s.e. i, and bungay, suffolk / 920 / PREFACE It is proposed to issue the present translation of the Biblio- theca in will of Photius five volumes ; a sixth contain an account of his life and works, a Bibliography, and a General Index to the whole. A translator of the Bihliotheca has apparently an open field. So far as can be ascertained, no complete version exists in English or any other modern language, although there are English translations or editions of some of the longer extracts [e.g, Ctesias' Indica), of some of the literary criticisms,^ of selected codices (chiefly on profane authors) in Italian by G. Compagnoni,^ a well-known Milanese literary man and states- man (1754-1834), and of the whole in Latin by the learned in Jesuit Andreas Schott^ Migne's Patrologia Graeca (vol. ciii.). * The text is unfortunately in many places unsatisfactory, and no critical edition has been attempted for nearly a hundred years — since 1824, the date of Immanuel Bekker's edition.
    [Show full text]
  • Julian, Plutarch, and the Dangers of Self-Praise Lea Niccolai
    Julian, Plutarch, and the Dangers of Self-Praise Lea Niccolai T WAS IN THE INTEREST of Julian as emperor to present his own actions and decisions in the best possible light and to Iseek acceptance of his policies by providing his readers with an idealised image of himself. However, as a rhetorician aware that his audience included men of lofty rank and high literary standards, he also knew of the dangers of explicit self-praise. This paper aims to deepen the enquiry into the issue of Julian’s rhetorical (self)awareness by providing a closer look at his argu- mentative techniques and at the unusual context in which they were employed, given that his addressees were also his subjects. In particular, I will propose that Julian’s political writings show the influence of a model of an unexpected nature, that is, of a source of rhetorical inspiration not stemming from the environ- ment of rhetorical training: Plutarch’s De se ipsum citra invidiam laudando, a short moralistic treatise in which Plutarch, touching on the theme of self-praise with unparalleled sensitivity to the social and political consequences of the practice, offers sugges- tions on how to pursue self-promotion without exposing oneself to charges of arrogance and conceit. Praise (and self-praise) in late antiquity When in his Confessions Augustine praises God for bringing home to him the “misery” associated with court flattery,1 his statement does not represent a sudden disclosure, to unaware readers, of the moral dubiousness of panegyrics, for audiences 1 Conf. 6.6.9: quomodo egisti ut sentirem miseriam meam die illo quo, cum pararem recitare imperatori laudes, quibus plura mentirer et mentienti faveretur ab scientibus.
    [Show full text]
  • Julian, Paideia and Education
    The Culture and Political World of the Fourth Century AD: Julian, paideia and Education Victoria Elizabeth Hughes Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy School of History, Classics and Archaeology April 2018 Abstract This thesis examines the role of education and paideia in the political and cultural landscape of the mid-fourth century, focusing on the Greek East and the reign of Julian, particularly his educational measures. Julian’s edict and rescript on education are often understood (not least in light of the invectives of Gregory of Nazianzus) as marking an attempt on his part to ban Christians from teaching and, by extension, from engaging in elite public life. They have been used by some scholars as evidence to support the hypothesis that Julian, a committed pagan, implemented an anti-Christian persecution. This thesis reconsiders that hypothesis: it re-evaluates the reign of Julian and his educational measures, and considers the political role of paideia as the culmination and public expression of rhetorical education. Chapter one introduces the topic and provides a brief ‘literature review’ of the key items for a study of Julian and education in the fourth century. Chapter two addresses rhetorical education in the fourth century: it offers a survey of its methods and content, and explores the idea of a ‘typical’ student in contrast with ‘culture heroes’. Chapter three investigates the long-standing Christian debate on the compatibility of a traditional Greek education with Christian belief, and considers the role of Julian in this connection. Chapter four discusses the enhanced status of Latin and of law studies in light of the enlarged imperial administration in the fourth century, and considers the extent to which this development worked to the detriment of rhetorical studies.
    [Show full text]
  • The Experiences and Education of the Emperor Julian and How It
    COMPANION TO THE GODS, FRIEND TO THE EMPIRE: THE EXPERIENCES AND EDUCATION OF THE EMPEROR JULIAN AND HOW IT INFLUE NCED HIS REIGN Marshall Lilly Thesis Prepared for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS August 2014 APPROVED: Christopher Fuhrmann, Major Professor Laura Stern, Committee Member Robert Citino, Committee Member Richard McCaslin, Chair of the Department of History Mark Wardell, Dean of the Toulouse Graduate School Lilly, Marshall. Companion to the Gods, Friend to the Empire: The Experiences and Education of the Emperor Julian and How It Influenced His Reign 361-363 A.D. Master of Arts (History), August 2014, 108 pp., bibliography, 114 titles. This thesis explores the life and reign of Julian the Apostate the man who ruled over the Roman Empire from A.D. 361-363. The study of Julian the Apostate’s reign has historically been eclipsed due to his clash with Christianity. After the murder of his family in 337 by his Christian cousin Constantius, Julian was sent into exile. These emotional experiences would impact his view of the Christian religion for the remainder of his life. Julian did have conflict with the Christians but his main goal in the end was the revival of ancient paganism and the restoration of the Empire back to her glory. The purpose of this study is to trace the education and experiences that Julian had undergone and the effects they it had on his reign. Julian was able to have both a Christian and pagan education that would have a lifelong influence on his reign.
    [Show full text]
  • Achaia, Greece, and Laconica Oliver, James H Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies; Spring 1980; 21, 1; Periodicals Archive Online Pg
    Achaia, Greece, and Laconica Oliver, James H Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies; Spring 1980; 21, 1; Periodicals Archive Online pg. 75 Achaia, Greece, and Laconica James H. Oliver N READING J. Rouge's now basic edition! of the Expositio Totius I Mundi et Gentium, the much later Latin translation of a lost Greek work which he dates to A.D. 359/60, one is struck by the manner III which the author describes Central Greece and the Peloponnese. Rouge prints the Descriptio Totius Mundi, a shorter and later version, below the Expositio on the same pages, so that one sees at a glance the reasons for corrections in many cases. Retaining two older emendations in line 14, we reproduce the rest of his text of Expositio §52, with a change of punctuation in line 8.2 Post Macedoniam Thessalia multa ferens <fru­ menta) et <in) aliis <sibi) sufficere dicitur. Et habet montem Olympum, quem deorum habitaculum Ho­ merus ait. Post Thessaliam Achaiae, Graeciae et Laconicae 5 terra, quae in se (studia) habens non sic (in) aliis 1 Sources chretiennes 124 (Paris 1966) [hereafter Rouge]. A. A. Vasiliev, "Expositio Totius Mundi: An Anonymous Geographic Treatise of the Fourth Century A.D.," SemKond VIn (Prague 1936) 1-39, offers an English translation and a good critique of the scholarly literature, but he too misunderstands §52, specifically the tripartite division and, we think, the meaning of the words provincia and historias. Of Rouge's more compre­ hensive study the economic geography and historical results have met with general approbation, notably from A. Chastagnol, Annates ESC 24 (1969) 463-68, though R.
    [Show full text]
  • “Prometheus” 32, 2006, 85-90
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Firenze University Press: E-Journals “Prometheus” 32, 2006, 85-90 HIMERIUS AND THE PRAETORIAN PREFECT SECUNDUS SALUTIUS After the emperor Julian entered Constantinople, where he ruled from December 11, 361 through the middle of June 362, he invited the Athenian sophist Himerius to join him. Himerius accepted the invitation, stopping at Thessalonica and Philippi on his way to Constantinople. Orations that he de- livered in each of those three cities are extant (39-41 Colonna)1. The oration he delivered in Constantinople (41) includes praise of the emperor Julian. Julian was not present to hear this oration: Himerius takes leave of his audi- ence by asking them to “let me now... set my eyes on the emperor” (41.16 basilevw" qevan poihvsasqai), which means that the emperor was not there to be seen. This oration was aimed primarily at a group of fellow Mithraic initiates, on an occasion when Himerius himself was initiated in the Mithraic mysteries2. But Himerius had reached Constantinople while Julian was still there: in the opening words of the oration Himerius says that “I have cleansed my soul through Mithra the Sun, and through the gods I have spent time with (suggenovmenoi) an emperor who is a friend of the gods”3. Having left Athens and his teaching career there and gone east, Himerius would not return until after the death of his Athenian rival, the sophist Prohaeresius, in 3664. We know essentially nothing about what he did during 1 Date of Julian’s arrival in Constantinople: Amm.
    [Show full text]